


Find Me (Where the Lovelight Gleams)

by praximeter (Zimario), quietnight



Series: The Night War [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Christmas, Family, Fanart, Gen, Identity Issues, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 03:39:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13091646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zimario/pseuds/praximeter, https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietnight/pseuds/quietnight
Summary: Astandalonecoda toThe Night War. Set in December 2014. Inspiration and art byquietnight, story bypraximeter.“You’re free now,” Steve said a lot. “You’re free, Buck.”He didn’t feel free.





	Find Me (Where the Lovelight Gleams)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel/sequel/coda to [_The Night War_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11314224/chapters/25321950), though it does stand alone. The premise is that the Barnes family posthumously published Bucky's wartime journals _The Night War_ , which is now considered a classic war memoir and a cultural touchstone of the latter half of the 20th century.

 

 

 

_Christmas Eve will find me_  
_Where the lovelight gleams_  
_I'll be home for Christmas_  
_If only in my dreams_

 

* * *

 

 

  

“You’re free now,” Steve said a lot. “You’re free, Buck.”

He didn’t feel free.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He stole it.

It’s hard to feel bad about it, considering. He’d been walking, marching really, through the streets for a couple hours. He thought it was a couple hours. He couldn’t—he still lost time. He thought he did. And he’d adjusted his stride, tilted his body, to avoid hitting the cart outside the bookstore. He’d tracked it, noted the shape of it, the weight of it, the approximate number of books on its shelves, whether its wheels were locked, whether it might roll and—

He didn’t recognize it at first, the book. Of the three editions— _Christ_ , ‘editions’—he’d seen, none matched this one.

Bucky fucking Barnes. Staring right back up at him.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He tucked the old hardcover inside the zipper of his sweatshirt and held it there, against his body. The hard corner of its spine dug into the meat of his chest until it slid and caught on the unnatural ridges of the shoulder plate, and bunched up the cotton of his shirt. He clutched it so tightly to himself he almost imagined the edges of it, long and sharp, compressing his lungs, forcing his breathing shallow.

His feet kept marching though he didn’t know where to. They ate up the sidewalk, avoided the slushy puddles and ragged edges of crumbling curbs, sidestepped paused pedestrians, while his entire focus clung to the book cradled to his heart.

He hated it. He hated it and he had _stolen_ it and he’d _left_ without telling anyone—without telling Steve—he wasn’t supposed to—he’d _left_ Ted— _Teddy_ , he was supposed to call him _Teddy_ — and Rebecca and— the other one—

He stopped short. There was no one around, no one— _following him_ — it was late, though he didn’t know what time because he didn’t have the phone and he didn’t check when he’d left the building and — _he didn’t remember leaving the building_.

But first. The other one. The other one was— he’d _been_ there, he had looked at him and said _Uncle Bucky it’s wonderful to meet you I’m_ —

 

 

 _I’m_ —

 

 

 _I’m_ —

 

 

A sudden bloom of cold in his right shoulder. A wall. He was slumped against a wall, he’d ducked out of view— off the sidewalk, anyone could see—

Gotta breathe, pal, easy, in and out.

His words, now Steve’s, Steve wasn’t here but the words he remembered, he at least remembered those.

The _book_. The book. It was still digging into his side, his ribs, an uncanny smoothness, the odd musty smell of it he’d perceived through the chill in the air, which was a clean cold, almost ozone, it was supposed to snow—

_They’re saying it might be up to a foot, gimme a break. We’re only two weeks into December, they always do this at the beginning of the season—_

Christopher, he realized. Chris. That was the other one’s name. Rebecca’s grandson. A nephew. A great-nephew, with tattoos.

 _Heard you had some ink too, if you ever want any more I can—_  

He swallowed violently. There was nothing in his mouth. His body was shaking, either from cold or adrenaline. Maybe both. He was still leaning against the wall. It was brick and concrete. His feet hadn’t taken him anywhere. The book was still pressed to his ribs, the one he’d stolen. 

 _This is for you_ , the old man— Ted— had said, and extended a feeble hand, one that he could see had been powerfully made once but now bore the signs of age: a freckling of small dark spots, a scabbed-over sore, a latticework of wrinkles and fine lines, and two discolored fingernails, one warped into an odd shape.

The hand held a small round package, a sphere of some kind, carefully wrapped in brown paper with precise little folds fanned out around the shape of it, tied with plain bakery string.

He accepted it. He could feel the low hum of discussion, the carefully maintained atmosphere of fellowship and festivity, as if all those people were there to see _each other_ , and not him, as if his every move was not _monitored_ and _evaluated_ and— 

There was a pregnant little pause, among the people that mattered: Steve, of course, and Rebecca, the old woman, his _sister_ , and the heft of Ted’s— _Teddy’s_ — hand as he relieved it of the weight of the parcel, the way the hand lingered in the space between them, before falling back to the old man’s side.

He didn’t know _he didn’t know_ —

“Thank you,” he said. The words came out flat and awkward, overly rehearsed. He had forgotten to smile. He had forgotten to make eye contact also. He held the little package in his right hand, suspended in the air, it was too big to fit in a pocket, and was he supposed to open it now, for an audience, or was it some kind of memento, perhaps, that Ted just meant him to have— 

He could feel it, the disappointment, the _discomfort_ , the way a little lightness in Ted’s shoulders suddenly dragged down, heavy, and the faint tilt of his mouth and the deep lines in the corners of his eyes, the way Ted’s entire self abruptly _sagged_ — he had done it _again_ , he had missed something _again_ — 

Panic swept acidly into his gut, into his lungs, into his hand, which clenched the gift too tightly, so tightly the paper crumpled, and whatever was inside _compressed_. Absently, he noted: _citrus_ , a bright flare of it, perfuming the air. An orange, meticulously wrapped in brown paper, one half of some kind of arcane recital for a piece everybody knew but him.

He could feel the pulse of his heart in a dry throat, in the tips of the fingers that dug into the wrapped fruit. Desperately, he tried again: “Thank you.”  This time it came out even more lifeless, even more wrong, and he watched as Ted straightened, as he manufactured a smile— 

“Oh, you’re welcome, Buck,” Ted said warmly, falsely. His hands, Ted’s old hands, they gripped the loose fabric of his corduroy pants, a painful looking flex of arthritic, swollen fingers, and the nostrils fluttered, and the face schooled itself into something pleasant, something that was meant to be pleasant.

The sight of it made his empty stomach clench and curdle. He hated this. He _hated_ this. This was a wake, and he was the sealed casket. The body of James Barnes, he knew, had never been found.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 _Start from where you are, and walk yourself backwards_.

 

 

 

Those were his instructions, for when he gets confused. If he forgets. _Walk yourself backwards_. It conjured up the impression of delicate hands, slim little fingers, a loop of string, dancing, plucking, snarling the string until it seemed all hope was lost and— _there_. A single finger, a clever pull, and it all came undone, as perfectly in order as it had been before. 

 _Start from where you are_.

It was dark. It had been dark when he’d left— and he _had left_ , he had— gone away, and then he was in a staircase, a service staircase, booted feet rumbling down the steps, a mechanical rhythmic thump of his rubber soles at a counterpoint to his ragged breathing—

 _Start from where you are_.

He had walked. He had walked and walked. He had pulled the sleeve of his sweatshirt down over his fist, pulled it again and again, twisted it around the metal fingers. _No one could see._ If they saw they would know, and—

He wasn’t sure where he was. It was dark. The road was— one-way. One lane. A cross-street. Couldn’t see a sign. Not enough people for it to be early in the evening. He must have been walking for hours. Until he stole the book.

He looked down. The book was invisible, hidden as it was inside his sweatshirt. But he knew it was there. Of course, everybody did.

He looked up. He could see— across the street, steps, and a neon sign; down the street, cars parked; to his left, two people walking, but away from him; above him, warm light from apartment windows; around him, the familiar reek of cigarette smoke, and the sourness of old beer, seeped into concrete.

The steps pulled at his attention. It was quiet here. The sounds lived inside the buildings, muffled and indistinct. On this street it was quiet. Here, everything felt far away.

His body had always moved with purpose, even if he had rarely grasped what that purpose was.

He strode across the street, to the sign, and drew out his stolen book.

 

 

> #### The Wartime Diary of Bucky Barnes
> 
> ####  _The Night War_  
> 
> #### “Cap’s Right-Hand Man!” 
> 
> ####  _With a New Foreword by President Dwight D. Eisenhower!_

 

 

 

 

  

 


End file.
